Eligibility:
Preference will be given to organizations who meet these criteria:
- The organization or association is community based.
- The organization or association has a budget of less than $50,000 per year.
- The organization or association is interested in strengthening a clearly defined neighborhood or school.
- The organization or association is already active in the neighborhood or school where the development effort will take place.
- There are at least six community members who are serving in leadership roles (paid or volunteer) who will work on the community development effort in an ongoing leadership role.
- At least one key leader from the organization or association has completed a Shift level training within the past 3 years and all key leaders are committed to completing training within six months of the grant award.
- The organization or association will designate a project coordinator and commit a minimum of 10 hours per month toward the project.
Types of Grants:
Training, Coaching and Consulting Grants – Coaching, training and consulting grants are awarded to community or organizational leaders who are interested in implementing the Empowered Communities Model in a community where they live, work or worship. These grants are for up to 12 coaching/training/consulting sessions over a one-year period of time and are valued at $2,500.
Implementation Funds – Implementation funds are available to organizations or associations who have completed the Equipping Phase of the Empowered Communities Model and who are ready to launch a development effort. Implementation funds can be used to pay resident stipends, purchase food for community gatherings and other supplies needed for community building efforts. Request can be made for up to $2,500 per project per year.
2020 Focus Area
In 2020, our focus will be on strengthening schools through parent and community engagement. If your organization or association is effectively engaging parents and members of the broader school community in strengthening efforts, we encourage you to apply.
While our focus in 2020 is on school strengthening, we will also be funding other worthwhile community building projects in many other categories, including family strengthening, youth development, safety projects, beautification and senior support. If your project is bringing neighbors together to work toward their dreams for their community, we would love to hear about it, and when appropriate offer our support.
Process:
- Send an email with the name of your organization or association and a brief summary of the work your group is doing and/or would like to do. Please be specific about the community or school where you will be engaging and your relationship to that community.
- We will respond to your email and if your project is a good fit for an Empowered Communities approach, we will set up a phone interview to learn more.
- Based on the interview, we will either recommend you apply for a grant or we will let you know why the project is not a good fit at this time.
- If invited to apply, we will send you an application, along with comments about the elements in your project that are most likely to receive support.
- Prior to starting this process, we recommend you check out our partner page where you will find examples of projects that we have funded in the past and are currently supporting.
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